Matt Johnson: One of the difficulties in getting
kids to work in groups is breaking down [the attitude that] “I'm
just doing work for myself.” There's not a lot of group learning,
perhaps, for some of these kids in the years before me. So I will give
one person the role of the recorder, another person will have [another]
particular duty. They have to work together. As time passes, I drop some
of those formal roles and it's the end product that kids have to work
on. I let them figure out how they're going to get there.

One of the things I've learned over the years is [that] you have to give
each student an assignment. At least for seniors, I've found that if you
don't, the burden falls on one or two kids in the group. My hope is you
get kids to work together, but the finished product is an individual assignment.
Otherwise, there's no incentive to work for some kids. It sounds terrible
to say, but there are students who will just shirk their responsibility
on to somebody else.

Letting go in the classroom is at first difficult. When I first began
teaching, I guess I was somewhat trained not to let go. If you let go,
management becomes a problem, but I found that [being in charge] was a
lot more work. I'm not saying I'm lazy, but it was always me [saying],
“You guys have got to listen to me, listen, listen, listen.”
Kids don't always want to listen--they want to get their hands dirty.
They want to get into the material. If you give them something meaningful
to do and you say there are repercussions for not doing it--you have to
give grades--it's not that hard. In fact, to me, it looks like I'm only
teaching 10 kids when you have 10 groups as opposed to 30 kids. I think
putting kids in groups really makes management easier and it's really
more fun. I know those 30 kids from putting them in groups. If I just
looked at them like one block of kids, I would never break down any real
walls between me and them.

Giving kids a lot of independence and ownership puts more responsibility
on them. There are too many classrooms where I'm responsible for the message;
they're responsible for taking down my thoughts. That is too reactionary.
They are just following what I say. I'd rather have them explore and work
with the material. I find that these kids, especially, are very creative.
If you give them the opportunity to show you what they can do, the sky
is the limit. If I gave them everything they needed to produce, I'm just
patting myself on the back.